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“Time is short” and “Time is money” are phrases that are increasingly heard in all walks of life. If it is to be successful, the sustainability agenda will need to promote a profound shift in the way we understand and manage time. As news becomes instant and money spins around the world at accelerating speeds, so business finds that current time is becoming ever ‘wider’. This involves the opening out of the time dimension, with more and more happening every minute of every day. By contrast, while it too is urgent, the sustainability agenda is pushing us in the other direction, towards ‘long’ time. Most politicians and business leaders – for perfectly understandable reasons – find it hard to think even two or three years ahead. This was well illustrated by the short-termism of the banking sector in the Foundation’s Fifth Consultation. The scale of the overall challenge is indicated by the fact that the emerging agenda requires thinking across decades, generations and, in some instances, centuries. The long-timers of the past thought in a very different way. When the architects and stonemasons designed and started to build St George’s Chapel in Windsor, they had a clear vision of what it would look like, although they knew that they would not see it themselves. They were handing on their project and vision to generations to come. Some of the questions to be addressed include:
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